If you've experienced runaway battery suckage on your brand-spanking-new iPhone 4S, you won't be alone if you're still cursing your Cupertian smartphone after updating to Apple's supposed battery-fixing iOS 5.0.1.
Apple admitted battery-life problems with the iPhone 4S and the new iOS 5 earlier this month, and released the iOS 5 …

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It wouldn't be more expensive for Apple

...Because in the end they have a tendency not to care at all about certain customer rights.

I don't know how things are going in other countries but in the Netherlands its demanded by law that people who buy an electronic device such as an iMac or iPhone are entitled to 2 years of warranty.

There is however one company who obviously doesn't give a damn about the law and sells its stuff with 1 year worth of warranty. If you want more you'll just have to pay up for "enhanced warranty". Something which is totally in violation with Dutch law. This has been known for years now, and only recently did a Dutch consumer TV program report about this through usage of hidden camera's and the likes. The result is quite shocking to say the least.

The impact even went so far that one employee apparently got tracked down and fired. Only because he mentioned (unrecognizable before the hidden camera) that the customer was right about being entitled to 2 years worth of warranty but that the one year was an "Apple policy" so they couldn't help her.

The obvious problem here is simple: being right is nowadays something totally different from getting your rights acknowledged. If you have a defective iMac for example and Apple refuses to help you I guess you could take it before a court. But at what costs? For the price that will cost you you can easily get yourself a new PC. So people don't bother...

It wouldn't surprise me if this end in the same way as the antenna issue; "Consumers are dumb and only need to change the way in which they operate their phone".

Needless to say, but as long as stories like these continue to surface time and time again then I'm really not in the very least tempted to try out any Apple hardware.

The law doesn't make sense....

As someone who works and lives abroad constantly, I can say that one thing I have noticed about Apple is that they are one of the most consistent tech companies when it comes to pricing their products internationally. Sure, Apple stuff in the UK costs more than in the US, but VAT is 20%, and the cost of doing business is higher in the UK. So Apple charges 20%-30% more. But companies like HP charge 50% more, and sometimes even lower the product's specifications for the non-US market (like HP's Envy laptop screens having 60% the resolution in the UK market, but costing way more than the US).

If Apple were to honour the whims of every country that wanted to pass an extended warranty, it would throw their international pricing way out of alignment - their product prices in the Netherlands would suddenly have to be higher than in, say, France, to the point where people would simply buy their Apple products from Amazon.fr and have them shipped. And yet Apple (unlike many vendors) honours warranties internationally, meaning that a French-bought iPad would still get covered by whatever whimsical warranty the Netherlands passed...

You see the problem here, don't you? There is no way for Apple to be fair to it's local customers with pricing, be fair to local stores selling their products, of predicting the actual warranty support costs, and honouring a government decreed warranty periods. No one course of action can accomplish all of these things.

When Apple brought their computers to market, the industry standard warranty for all computer products was 90-days. Steve Jobs personally ruled that it should be raised to 1 year for all Apple products, no matter how much it cost, or what it did to their pricing. For the government of the Netherlands to unilaterally decided that, lo and behold, we can mandate any warranty we want, is basically nonsensical - because it ignores the fact that Dutch stores will be forced to sell at higher prices than their close neighbours, and will lose business to the large international sellers like Amazon. And probably close more local stores and shops. Hardly the outcome that people really want, I think.

Say what?

What on earth are you rambling on about? The issue here is a bug in iOS, which they have acknowledged and attempted to resolve quickly. What does that have to do with warranty and consumer rights??

And for the record, I did once have a faulty iMac. Apple customer services were in a different league to any other tech company I have dealt with (Dell, HP etc). They couldn't have been more helpful and apologetic, sent me a replacement next day UPS without any sort of argument and gave me £200 as a good will gesture.

For the amount of money an apple gadget costs I would expect it to last me a lot longer than the two years mandated by the Dutch goverment! I was quite happy when they brought that it, and remember Apple being on the consumer programs because of their attitude.

It's unreal that any private person would seriously say 'No, please, I want LESS warrenty and protection not MORE! Let me give my money to Apple releatedly - after all it's only fair!' Wow.

Reading riddiculous statements from Apple owners is really making me think that I made a mistake buying the MB Pro I got in the summer. The kit sucks (no more than windows kit of the same cost, but certainly no less) and I get lumbered in the same category as people like you!

I see your point but...

I can see your point and understand that it's a difficult situation but the bottom line is that Apple must comply with the law. If that means that local vendors are disadvantaged because apple prices the product higher to include the extended warranty, that's a problem between the vendors and the law makers.

Apple can't just decide to ignore a law simply because it's inconvenient.

Battery problems? Really?

I'd go so far as to say that a lot of the complaints' assertions are completely subjective - they get update that is supposedly better with regards to the battery so they use it more, then act surprised when their battery is caned.

Cores has nothing to do with it

Cores aren't turned on unless they're being used and I assume the OS would take pains to avoid doing this except when the foreground app needed the CPU. So unless the iPhone has botched this setting the power draw shouldn't be especially different.

It's far more likely that something in the background is needlessly waking up, polling or doing something which is making the device drain power more than it should.

How someone can, less than 24 hours later, that the battery life is 'worst' means that that they have, in fact, not tested the fix. I didn't have a big issue with my 4S battery life, however I have noticed that it is improved after a day of use as I have at least twice the remaining as I have in the past.

I think that's partly the problem

It appears there is no definitive answer why certain iPhone 4S' suck (power) and others don't.

If I were Apple I'd bring out a diagnostic App that could dump a state and compare the hungry ones with each other. I'd look at Apps running, settings of gadgetry such as location services (off), use of iCloud (not enabled, I like my data to remain in Europe), use of WiFi or not and if 3G is enabled (I almost doubled battery ice by switching that off when I only use email).

I only care because the 4S appears a sensible upgrade to my 3GS, but I think I'll wait a little bit longer. There are HUGE advantages to not being first, and that's not just by not having to stand in a queue..

It's not hard to figure out

@Henry

On my phone I'd agree with you, but then the battery normally lasts for most of a week. These people are saying that the battery goes flat in less than a day. If my battery was going flat in less than a day, I think I would be able to tell in 24 hours.

Given that the complaint is that it's lasting much less than the 24 hours of many other smartphones, testing the fix takes a maximum of 24 hours - the faster the discharge, the faster you know it's still broke.

Really?

millions of iPhone 4S users are not complaining ...

... well, no, they probably feel honoured that the worlds most amazing hardware company is allowing them, mere users, to field-test the new iPhone beta before the release of the next version will will have different bugs.

Get real

Problems are problems, but a few thousands of several million users are just background noise. 0.05% of users complaining is nothing. I would expect it's awfully hard to get a yield of fully working batteries of 99.9% or so -- if you had and still have problems go to Apple and change your phone for a working one. Problem solved.

(My iPhone 4 had no problems with 5.0 and still has none with 5.01. 75% battery after 11 hours standby and 2 hours active usage is totally fine in my book.)